The Yearly

More than just talks — tactics

This isn’t your average marketing conference. We like to get our hands dirty, so we’re diggin’ through the mud to discover strategies and tips from our speakers’ own charismatic career paths.

Brought to you by Carney.co, a full-service digital agency, thriving alongside clients in industries large and small.

Our Line Up

Tara Gentile
Founder of CoCommercial

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Community Building That Finally Delivers

Bio

Tara Gentile is on a mission to turn today’s small business owners into tomorrow’s economic powerhouses. She’s the founder of CoCommercial, a support network where small business owners trade notes, share what’s working, and connect. She’s also the host of What Works, a podcast that takes you behind the scenes of successful small businesses and shows you what’s working in marketing, operations, time management, product development, and more. Entrepreneur named it one of 24 top women-hosted podcasts for business owners.

Tara is also a sought after speaker, educator, and a bestselling Money & Life expert on CreativeLive. Tara’s work has been featured in Fast Company, Inc, DailyWorth, Forbes, and The Huffington Post.

Find out more about her work at CoCommercial and request your invitation by going to cocommercial.co

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Victoria Ekwenuke
Global Brand Manager at eBay

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How to #BlackGirlMagic and Manage Brands

Bio

Victoria is currently the Global Brand Manager at eBay working in Silicon Valley. She’s not a techie, but loves the magic of technology and its ability to connect people to ideas across cultures and borders. With more than 10 + years of traditional CPG and entrepreneurial know how, Victoria brings an unconventional outlook on the magic between brands, people and experiences. With a Howard University MBA, her career in brand management spans across manufacturing companies such as Colgate Palmolive in New York, Wrigley in Chicago and most recently Unilever in Toronto, Canada.

Born in Canada, Victoria’s family is originally from Nigeria. She initially moved to the US on a soccer scholarship in 2002 and has traveled, worked and lived all over the globe. She gives back to the community by speaking at various events, blogging using her alias ‘AnalogBlackGirl,’ contributes to the diaspora movement and believes that she has a duty to positively influence the generation after her.

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Anthony Vennare
Co-Founder & CEO of Fitt.co

Talk Theme

Scale the Unscalable: Content x Creators

Bio

Anthony is a charismatic and visionary leader who, after serving in the US Marine Corp, has built an impressive track record as a successful entrepreneur. In addition to founding Fitt, a community-driven media platform and activity marketplace for local fitness events and activities, Anthony recently sold an upstart media property to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and was names to Forbes 30 under 30 for 2018.

In his role as CEO of Fitt, Anthony leads of team of twenty in Pittsburgh as well as more than 300 contributors across the United States who are building the go-to resource for connecting with local fitness communities. Combining his passion for helping people achieve a healthier lifestyle with his skill for marketing, sales, and product design.

After bootstrapping Fitt’s growth to 15 cities and more than $1M in revenue, the company recently brought on its first outside capital ($1.5M) to fuel the development of an all-in-one platform for local health and fitness activities. After surveying the landscape of fitness-related media companies and registration software, Fitt set out to create a unifying discovery and booking engine that alleviated a fragmented and transactional environment. As the company continues to scale and more users discover, share, and sign-up for fitness events, Fitt is well-positioned to compete within the multi-billion dollar personal fitness and event registration markets.”

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Jaymie Tarshis
Owner of Jaymie Tarshis Consulting

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How to Use Facebook Ads to Increase Your Sales

Bio

Jaymie is a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and speaker. She’s also the owner of Jaymie Tarshis Consulting, where she specializes in helping companies generate consistent traffic, leads and sales by leveraging the power of Facebook Ads. Since starting her company in 2014, Jaymie has managed over half a million dollars in Facebook ad spend and her campaigns have been responsible for filling up online webinars, launching books into Amazon best-sellers, and generating hundreds of thousands of leads across many different industries.

In addition, Jaymie is the host of a Facebook Ads Mastermind group where she teaches entrepreneurs and small business owners how to get started with paid traffic and grow their business online. She’s been a featured speaker in many online summits and podcasts, including Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas.

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Diane Walter
Global Digital Marketing Manager at Philips

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Event MC

Bio

Diane is a digital pioneer with more than 20 years’ experience, and a self-proclaimed “marketing misfit and curious geek.” She has been pushing marketing boundaries longer than most, managing brands for Fortune 500 companies and doing time at top-ranked ad agencies. She is especially keen on social innovation, technology, and all things Pittsburgh.

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Daniel Gurwin
Designer & Letterer

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Social Media is Not the End Goal. Good Work is the End Goal

Bio

Daniel Gurwin is a graphic designer, lettering artist, and illustrator in Pittsburgh, PA with a focus on logo design, brand identity, and creative strategy. He has a love for all things analog, dusty, crusty, and quirky, and thinks that pencil and pixel should work hand-in-hand. When he’s not working, he’s walking his dog and getting distracted by signs.

contributor

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Tessa Jacocks
Director of Growth at Bumble

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Building a Growth Stack

Bio

A Texas native, Tessa is from Dallas and lived in Austin almost 10 years. She graduated from UT Austin’s College of Natural Science looking for a career that applied her love of math and science to mission-driven consumer products. As Director of Growth, she works at the intersection of product and marketing to optimize user acquisition, engagement, and revenue. Combining data and research, she guides strategy for product decisions and growth marketing, while always keeping Bumble’s mission at the core.

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Nicholas Comanici
Chief Marketing Officer at Carney

Talk Theme

Email is Not Dead

Bio

Nick is an entrepreneur whose passion for building brands led him to Carney, where he helped conceptualize the company’s marketing newsletter.

He has been creating and nurturing brands since the early 2000’s. Nick has since grown two online businesses, Seneca Creek and Seneca Press, leveraging social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

After being mentored by Dale Partridge, the founder of Sevenly.com, Nick became a practitioner of modern digital marketing tactics. Following an obsession with the marketing process, Nick joined agency life, seeking the advantages of creative collaboration. He now helps lead a company of designers, developers, and marketers.

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Jordyn Martin
Lead Copywriter at Carney

Bio

Jordyn learned her wordsmith skills (and penchant for puns) through her journey through the fashion retailer, ModCloth. Working her way up through the company, she soon found herself in an ever-coveted position on the Fashion Writing team. It’s there she harnessed the brand’s unique voice, writing for the ubiquitously creative product names and descriptions. She later joined the marketing team as a Copy Strategist, writing website and promotional copy, as well as learning the ins and outs of email marketing, advertising, SEO, and blogging.

Now, Jordyn is a copywriter at Carney, and one of the two writers that spearhead the Daily Carnage, the company’s marketing newsletter. Quite literally on the daily, she curates top content and writes summaries to a special tune — the voice of the Daily Carnage, which has garnered a fast-growing and enthusiastic following.

She continues to cultivate her marketing and advertising skills as her day-to-day brings her to the forefront of market research, strategy, and analytics. She also helps manage the brand’s social media accounts, as well the social media and blogging for select Carney clients.

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Alyssa Catalano
Owner of Studebaker Metals

Talk Theme

Slow is Fast. Leveraging Your Story

Bio

Alyssa Catalano is the owner of Studebaker Metals, a Braddock-based accessories brand that employs traditional metalsmithing tools to make heirloom-quality cuff bracelets and small goods.

She started her company in 2013 with partner, Michael Studebaker. Their distribution now spans from Pittsburgh to Tokyo, always retaining the core principle of their brand: that every piece is made by people, not machines.

Alyssa has worked as a buyer, stylist and photo art director for global retailers such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and ModCloth, and continues to work on creative marketing projects for brands large and small. Her 10 years of retail marketing experience serves as an intuitive propellant for her partner’s unique skill set of metal work and craft production.

With the same commitment to building Studebaker, Alyssa identifies as an open door resource for other woman-owned small businesses, providing mentorship on anything from setting margins to larger, overarching branding initiatives.

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Seth Hunter
Founder of Toll Gate Revival

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The Art of Unpaid Traffic

Bio

Seth is an entrepreneur, builder, designer, and curator who’s been self-employed since 2014. Today, he owns his own retail business, Tollgate Revival, as well as a curating and outfitting numerous businesses with his esteemed furnishings.

John Malecki
YouTuber & Furniture Maker

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How to Build an Engaged Following on Instagram

Bio

John’s story starts on the football field, playing for the NFL for several years, including a two-year long stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers. After his football career, John picked up a rewarding hobby — woodworking. He has since transformed this hobby into a booming furniture-making business, garnering a huge social media following.

His mission? “To inspire a new generation of makers and craftsman. Show this ever changing world that paving the way with your hands is not dead. It is actually very much alive!”

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Topics

Brand Voice

Building Client Relationships

Content Curation

Copywriting

Email Marketing

Paid Social Ads

Pitching Clients

Social Strategy

Be the Sharpest Marketer in the Room

Coming to you from the minds behind The Daily Carnage, a marketing newsletter dedicated to delivering top content to our readers.

Born from the idea that a digital agency’s marketing team should stay current on marketing trends, tools, news, and more… And we’ve never been sharper.

“If you enjoy the Skimm as much as I do, and you love the world of marketing as much as I do, you should check out the newsletter The Daily Carnage.”

Why You Should 100% Be There

We’re putting a lid on head-in-the-clouds, inspirational marketing. The Yearly Carnage is where people stop being polite and start getting real. Wait, that’s not right— but our speakers are keeping it real, serving up more than just story time. You’ll learn the freshest marketing tactics from people who live and breathe digital marketing every day.

If you’re tired of hearing from marketing “gurus” and ready to hear from real marketers doing real marketing, then grab your ticket and tell your boss you’re not showing up to the office on April 13th. Heck, maybe your boss will even buy your ticket—employee development, ya dig?

Pricing

Lunch included with ticket. Cash bar available.

Early Bird

$75

Ends February 28

Regular

$99

March 31

You're Late

$125

Ends April 9

You're Really Late

Venue: Ace Hotel

The five-story, century-old YMCA building melds past, present, and future, mirroring the neighborhood it thrives alongside. From its bustling lobby to its restaurant of farm-driven, locally-sourced food to its perfectly modern rooms, the Ace Hotel shines.

In keeping with the heritage of the YMCA building, the gym is the hotel’s central gathering place, which still reps its old-school style.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Ace Hotel is located right in the heart of Pittsburgh’s East Liberty, recently spotlighted by Time Magazine as the #1 “coolest neighborhood” to live right now. Hey, their words, not ours, but we won’t argue.

The birthplace of Andy Warhol, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Gene Kelly, and Jeff Goldblum (couldn’t leave Jeff out), Pittsburgh is at once charismatic and pragmatic. Its steel-laden past remains welded to the city’s newfound energy, sparked by tech, medicine, and its cultural institutions. Everywhere you look, you’ll see where the city has been and where it is going.

While “arahn tahn” (a beloved Pittsburghese way of saying “around town”), visit any number of city’s unique museums and prized establishments.

A few of our personal favs:

The expansive Carnegie Natural History Museum (major shout out to the Gem Room)